New blackout rule unlikely to curb fan abuse Lard

Douglas LeeJul 3, 2012 7:30 AM

Good Morning, Broncos fans! Just two days ago we applauded news that the NFL would be relaxing its blackout rules, thus allowing more hometown fans to watch games on TV.

But there's of course a catch, and the Chargers - who accounted for two of the league's sixteen blackouts last season, with four blackouts the year before - say they will not take advantage of the change.

Traditionally, when a team fails to sell out a game, local fans get screwed over by losing the ability to watch that game on television. The idea here is that the blackout rule encourages fans to attend games in person and drop $100 for a ticket, $40 for parking, and $10 per beer, rather than stay on the couch, watch the game for free, and change the channel during commercials and halftime. As if that's a reasonable choice for many people.

Of all the NFL policies that serve to abuse its loyal fans, there's probably nothing worse than the blackout rule. Fans in areas like San Diego are stressing about whether they'll actually see the upcoming game, rather than anticipating it with excitement. And obviously, plenty of these fans cannot afford the time or money required to attend games in person.

The new policy will allow teams to lower their blackout thresholds to as low as 85% of capacity, which in theory would keep more games on television. Here's the catch, though - the deadline for lowering the threshold is July 15, and there is no turning back. It's not a week-to-week thing; a team can't simply trigger the lower threshold because they're in danger of a single blackout midseason. Once the team drops the blackout figure, it's there for the entire season.

How does this hurt the teams, you ask? There's a penalty - if the Chargers were to drop to the 85% figure, they would have to share a larger portion of their revenues with the rest of the league for every time they sell more than that 85%. Chargers owner Dean Spanos says this is too high a price for the team to consider lowering their blackout threshold, especially since his team plays in an older stadium and lacks naming and signage rights.

Now that we know the catch involved, it seems a lot less likely that any team will choose to lower its blackout figure.

While blackouts are probably the biggest week-to-week fan torture device, there's something even bigger that some fans face on a yearly basis: the threat their team will head out of town. And as for the memo sent by the Ginger Hammer laying out the requirements for teams looking to move to Los Angeles in 2013, Kevin Acee says it was a message intended for the Raiders, not the Chargers. Acee sees no possibility of the Bolts leaving town, at least not next year.

In support of that sentiment, Chargers special counsel Mark Fabiani says the memo does nothing to make Los Angeles more appealing for the team.

The fan abuse continues. Thank you, Mr. B.

Broncos

In a Q&A with the official site, secondary coach Ron Milus says that during OTAs he saw significant strides from Rahim Moore over his play from last season. He also admits he didn't know Chris Harris's name before the undrafted rookie surprised everyone last year, and it sounds like he expects Harris to be the fourth corner behind Champ Bailey, Tracy Porter, and Drayton Florence.

Trimmings

45-year-old ex-Chargers LB Steve Hendrickson is the latest retired player to speak up about his cognitive problems. Hendrickson believes he suffered around 20 concussions during his years playing college and pro ball, and says he started suffering short-term memory loss while in his 30s. Yet, the NFL's pension system views Hendrickson as suffering from disabilities brought on by non-football injuries. (via PFT)

I disagree with the premise that the answer for owners is reducing the ticket price to ensure a sell out. You have to look at what the owners goal is. Is it selling out the stadium or maximising revenue?

If the stadium holds 80k fans and tickets are $60 each and they sell 70k seats they gain $4.2 million per game.

If they need to reduce the ticket price to $50 to ensure a sell out then they gain £4 million.Therefore economically it doesnt make sense to reduce the prices. It gets even worse financially if the ticket price that ensures a sell out is lower than $50.

There is then the issue of concessions that the additional 10K fans may buy at the stadium, but how much of this money goes to the owners as profit and would it exceed $200k? Each additional fan would have to spend $60 just to bring in an extra $20 of profit at 40% margin. However, if the concessions are franchised then the extra revenue would not neccesarily go to the owners.

It would make more sense to have special deals a few times a season where kids go for $10 with each paying adult. This is a win win for the owners because you get additional tickets sales, some at full price, sell some additional concessions, and maybe get the kid hooked on live football so next game/season the parents may buy full price tickets as special gifts for their children.

Posted by cockneybronco on 2012-07-04 03:43:16

While I agree with your premise. Many of the teams are leveraged with either loans for the team or stadiums.

If they lower the % for sell outs it cost them r money as their split changes.

I do disagree that unless your the only show in town. Which the broncos were for decades and that is where the biggest part of the fan base was built, you have to put a quality product on the field which SAN, JAX for the most part have not. Many of California's population did not grow up there where Colorados until a deca or so ago did not

Posted by Lonestar47 on 2012-07-03 21:32:07

Millionaire? Are we back in the guilded age? In 2012 dollars, a millionaire can buy season tickets in some nice seats. But it takes a billion to buy the team.

In JD Rockefeller's days, a million meant wealth, power, and prestige. These days, a million is a nice nest egg, but a millionaire can't buy ten minutes of their Senator's time.

Posted by A R on 2012-07-03 17:22:07

I'm amazed that billionaires (yes Lonestar47, thats billion with a B) forget the law of supply and demand when they purchase a sports franchise. If the stadium isn't selling out, ticket prices are too high.

The other side of the equation is that if the stadium is selling out, fans have no right to complain that ticket prices are too high. For sellouts to occur, ticket prices have to be at or below prices set by S/D. If scalpers are profiting, then ticket prices are too low, dispite the protests of those that can't or won't pay the going rate.

Back to the owners, empty seats bring in ZERO revenue. Better to lower the ticket price to sell the last seats then to have them go empty and make nothing. Costs for sporting events are pretty much fixed, so every extra person in the gate is marginal revenue.

Posted by A R on 2012-07-03 17:19:14

I think that the fact that they've not sold out shows that they're pricing the entire product incorrectly. They can't simply sell the last 10-15K seats at significant discount; as you note that will devalue the more expensive seats*. They need to adjust pricing across the board to sell all of their inventory, if that's what the market demands. There's a curve representing revenue compared to price and inventory sold, and the point at which they just barely sell out all of their inventory is probably pretty close to the top of the curve.

I'm not sure why NFL franchises don't do this; maybe across the board lower ticket prices would challenge the perception that the NFL is a recession-proof money making juggernaut and threaten the franchise valuation bubble Ted wrote about last year? That's blatant speculation on my part, but knowing the NFL, I wouldn't put it past them.

*in a way, the Bronco's stadium deal, which requires 2k or so single game seats to be sold at half price, is a win-win for fans and the team in this regard.

Posted by Hercules_Rockefeller on 2012-07-03 17:14:54

Sorry Kriss, but you miss the boat on this one. San Diego fans have the same passion for their team as others, but they cannot afford to go to the games. The price of homes in SD is indicative of all costs, not just housing. The cost of living in San Diego is about 25% more than it is in Denver. Salaries are only about 15% higher, so that doesn't leave a lot of room for extras like enriching the Spanos, especially at the lower/middle layer of incomes where the most passionate fans are.

Posted by DCJ1 on 2012-07-03 16:43:21

I agree most in SoCal do not care enough to keep the team and those that do will drive to LA to watch the others will simply do what they do out of season. Go to the beach work in the yard etc.

Posted by Lonestar47 on 2012-07-03 15:48:00

Sorry iPad freezes up. While the owners while millionaires who have spent hundreds of millions trying to sell their product. Sorry but I feel they have rights also.

Posted by Lonestar47 on 2012-07-03 15:40:43

Sorry but I do not have symphany for fans that do not support the team even if the cost are so high for a game. Not everyone needs to park curb side, nor drink to capacity. I managed to pay for season tickets go to each game till i moved out of state for 19 years while in high school, tyen work at minimum wage and even for ten years being married raising a son, granted to was prior to PSLs and all at MHS.

For most of that time there was no such thing as blackouts. Of course TV was grainy at best and one or two camera.

But most cities if they are competive, should be able to sell out games so the poor should be able to watch a game on their 60" tv with surround sound in their barkco lounger with a feast fit for a king.

Posted by Lonestar47 on 2012-07-03 15:33:18

ohiobronco Smart solution, OB. "Then once they are in the stadium and they start to get thirsty their wallets will probably get a little looser." Yep.

Posted by Doc Bear on 2012-07-03 14:55:02

Teams need to figure out a way to sell those last 10-15K seats at a lower price without hurting the percieved value of the other seats. If they could sell otherwise unsold tickets at half price or even less that's free revenue not only on the ticket price but the extra $10 beers etc. The trick is to find a way to do that without discouraging people from buying full price tickets. Perhaps sell unsold upper level seats at half price for a short window of time to make it seem like a special deal. People who wouldn't otherwise go may snap them up. Then once they are in the stadium and they start to get thirsty their wallets will probably get a little looser.

Posted by ohiobronco on 2012-07-03 14:16:28

The details on the blackout rule are a bit disapointing IMO. Only the NFL could do something that seems so fan-freindly, only to have it turn out to be not much more than smoke and mirrors. The way I see it there's little incentive for a team like the Chargers to take advantage of the rule. The only way they'd do that is if the revenue they'd gain from avoiding potential blackouts is more than the $$ they'd have to share with the other teams on all the other games. that doesn't sound likely to make balance out unless they're projecting a likelyhood of having to black out multiple games by a very small margin (in which case they could go the old route of buying the tickets and donating them or having a sponsor buy the tickets). The only way it makes sense is for a team like the jaguars, who could potentially open up the previously closed seating sections. They'd have to share the revenue from those sections, but it's incremental revenue so that's OK. The biggest question would be whether they're confident that they'd sell a good chunk of those extra tickets.

Or maybe the redskins will take advantage of the new rule and admit that they don't really sell out their stadium, leaving the sellout record where it belongs...

Posted by Hercules_Rockefeller on 2012-07-03 12:20:05

Agree - but confused why people say things like what Lombardi is saying (likely to meet deadlines and drive clicks). Manning's neck was deemed healthy last December. His neck is not at risk. The Colts docs and Broncos docs concur there. He can and will take hits the same way he always has. That means that he'll get licked a few times during the year, but he won't be goofing around outside the pocket or trying to run down fumbles or players returning intercepted passes. He'll get the eff outta dodge.

The biggest question is what his arm strength will look like compared to 2010.

Frankly, in 2010, I started noticing that Manning wasn't hitting those deep outside routes with the same consistency or throwing them as often. There are a ton of factors as to why (including better prepared defenses, worse offensive weapons, worse offensive line, etc), but its likely that one of them is that he's gotten older and can't rip those throws off with a flick of the wrist.

To that, I say: Big effin deal.

Denver has 2 Lombardis. Those were won when Elway wasn't relying on his cannon arm, deep passes, and showing off his improvisation skills. Denver ran the ball and had a very efficient short and mid range passing game and when somebody got loose deep, Elway could get it out there with average accuracy.

If Manning is laser accurate on everything middle-deep and shorter, Denver gets exactly what they want. Nobody has an efficient deep game, anyway. The deep game is one of the least forecast-able parts of the NFL game unless it's 1998 and Randy Moss is on your team.

Lets set expectations reasonably here. Manning's fine. He has the same probability as Brady or Brees or Rodgers does of getting injured. If he was a player, like Vick, who has a long injury history, then his risk might be greater. But he doesn't.

Posted by Super7 on 2012-07-03 12:18:57

I get the point that we need to see how an injured player reacts to being hit before we can really say how effective he'll be. if he's too gun-shy, that's going to have a negative impact. But with Manning, that's probably not the case as much as it might be with someone else. We already know that the way to get Manning off his game is to get in his face and physically pressure / intimidate him. Someone made some really good points about the '05 playoff game against the steelers in the other day (the name escapes me, so I can't give proper credit where it's due). It's true that Manning's game is predicated on precise preparation and execution, and if you can get him off his game his productivity suffers more dramatically than other QB's. But that's easier said than done. Manning's so efficient at getting the ball out on time and on target that all it takes is a decent O-Line (and his O-line was absolutely horrible that day against pittsburg) to give him the time he needs. Once he gets in sync with his receivers it's going to be very hard for most teams to get that sort of pressure on him. I agree with ohiobronco, it's more about getting into the game situations than it will be about the physical aspect of getting hit for him.

Posted by Hercules_Rockefeller on 2012-07-03 12:12:00

Hopefully Prater's contract included incentives for making 40-49 yard FGs.

Posted by A R on 2012-07-03 11:58:12

I would almost take the opposite approach. Based on the home prices in the area, how in the world could they afford to go to the game as well?

Posted by Myron Giddings Jr on 2012-07-03 10:26:11

I think Lombardi is right about PMFM needing a little time to get comfortable and in a rhythm. I don't think it has anything to do with taking hits though.

Posted by ohiobronco on 2012-07-03 10:03:22

I'm certainly not feeling badly for all Chargers fans. But for those who can't afford to go to games, it sure does suck that whether they can watch on TV is determined by the ticket buying tendencies of the fans who are better off.

Posted by Douglas Lee on 2012-07-03 09:35:45

Sympathy for the Chargers fans? I don't get it. They have a consistently competitive team, legitimate elite QB, and are playoff contenders year in year out. And anyone who has looked at the price of homes in SD would realize that $160 for a football game is pretty reasonable. No, that town just doesn't care about its football team and therefore gets what it deserves with the blackouts.